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Topic: s/o Food Dictators - Sleep Dictators (Read 17012 times)

I live in a house of night owls and other than my mother, I always have. I am not a late night person. From the time of 5 years old there are tons of stories about me being asleep while "X happened". My kid's are night owls as is my DH. Since they were about 12, it is not unusual for me to go to bed/asleep before them.

But my biggest issue is I'm not grumpy during the night. When I'm tired I go to bed. I don't inflict any poor behavior on others.

But I'm constantly told I shouldn't expect night owls to be civil in the mornings. DH get's irritated with me when I try to converse with him or my 15 yr old son in the mornings. Well, sorry but our society says HS students have to be at school at 7:55. Not my rule. So if you know you have to be awake and functional to leave the house by 7:30 every single morning then I think it is your responsibility to act civily.

The same with co-workers or friends. If you can not wake up and be functionally civil then find a different line of work that doesn't require you to open up an eye before 9am.

But my biggest issue is I'm not grumpy during the night. When I'm tired I go to bed. I don't inflict any poor behavior on others.

You may not. But, you're not typical of what I find out there. I find that there are a lot of militant morning people who can't understand why I'm not up at 6AM or why I'm not totally awake in the mornings. I'm not, necessarily, grumpy. But I may not be altogether "there" yet. You have to give me some time to get my focus.

And, just because I'm talking to you doesn't mean I'm actually lucid! Don't try to have a major discussion with me in which you need a binding answer when I first wake up.

My beef is that I'm labeled as "lazy" when I sleep until a little later. No. I'm sleeping the same amount you are - I'm just doing it at a different range of hours. I'm not any more lazy than you are for going to be early!

I think it comes down to understanding. I'll understand why you morning people are going to bed early and chipper in the mornings if you (generic) understand that it's ok for me to be wide awake and still going at 1AM and then need to sleep a little later than you do. As long as we compromise, we're all fine!

Editing to make sure it's understood that the "yous" here are generic rather than directed at Hmmmmmmmm.

I know a few sleep dictators, and they seem to be equally on the side of getting up early vs staying up late. A couple of people I knew in college would get very annoyed if you wanted to go to bed any time before midnight, or get up before 10 am. To the point where if you attempted to leave a gathering, they would call you out and attempt to shame you into staying longer. That gets old quickly!

My grandmother isn't really a sleep dictator, but cannot understand why people aren't all up by 7 am, even on weekends. If you ask her, she'll say something like, "Well, if you wait any longer than that, daylight's slipping by!". I'm a natural early bird, so I don't mind, but it was kind of irritating to have her call me super early on some Saturday thinking I should be up.

My mom is pretty funny. Although an early bird like me, she vigorously defends a person's right to sleep as late as they want (well, anyone except me. I should still get up early, for some reason). If she hears me telling my DH to get up, she'll scold me that he deserves to sleep in. It doesn't matter why I'm telling him to get up, or what time it even is!

I know a few sleep dictators, and they seem to be equally on the side of getting up early vs staying up late. A couple of people I knew in college would get very annoyed if you wanted to go to bed any time before midnight, or get up before 10 am. To the point where if you attempted to leave a gathering, they would call you out and attempt to shame you into staying longer. That gets old quickly!

I know people like that. It's extra fun because I have so many issues with falling asleep/staying asleep that any little disruption to my sleep schedule can result in 3 days of near sleeplessness. Most of my friends are extremely heavy sleepers who just don't understand that I can't sleep through anything, and that falling asleep is something that usually takes nearly an hour for me to do (if I'm lucky). Oh, and I have to get up for work a little after 6:00 A.M. so I have to go to bed at a time that most of my friends think is stupidly early.

Some have learned not to mess with me, though. The night before our wedding, my husband didn't have a full-blown bachelor party. Instead, his buddies came over and they played XBox for hours..and hours... At 3:00 A.M. I stomped into the living room in my PJs and told them to shut the $#* up so that I could at least get some sleep before my wedding. They opted to leave (very quietly). My husband now gives me a small gift the night before our anniversary. He calls it "shut the $#* so I can sleep" day. I did get several apologies from DH and from his friends at the wedding, and that particular group now respects my sleep.

I know a few sleep dictators, and they seem to be equally on the side of getting up early vs staying up late.

Oh, I agree. There are "problems" at both ends of the spectrum! That's why I think we all need to compromise and just realize that neither side is correct - it depends on the person. Some people truly are not morning people - we just aren't. And no cajoling us to get up early and see the sunrise is going to make us such! And vice versa.

My mother is decidedly not a morning person, while my father often wakes up at 4:30 in the morning and decides to go to work because he has nothing better to do. One day my mother received a phone call from my grandmother (father's mother) that woke her up. Mum blearily tried to figure out who she was, where she was, what was happening, and finally my grandmother started teasing her saying, "It's 8:00 am your time (6:00 am for my grandmother), and you're still in bed?" Finally my mother says, "No, it's 4 in the morning, you got the time change wrong." My grandmother never called before 9:00 am ever again, and I have never to this day gotten confused about which way time changes work.

I used to catch a lot of flak from my mom's BF about my sleeping habits, especially when I was back home for a few months while I looked for a new place to live. It was a lot of rather condescending, "I've never known ANYONE who sleeps as much as Sweetonsno" and "Well, look who finally decided to join us" when I finally came down in the morning. There were also many comments about maladies that are known to cause someone to sleep too much.

I think he assumed that I fell asleep at around the time he did (whenever he happened to lie down, usually sometime between 9 and 10 at night). I'm lucky to fall asleep by 2 most days. That's been the case for quite awhile. Even when I was in high school and had to get up at 6 every morning to catch the bus, I would fall asleep around 1 or 2. Really annoying. When I tried to explain that, he helpfully suggested that I go to bed earlier. I was usually in bed by 10 and spent the next few hours rolling over, adjusting my pillows, and staring at the ceiling.

My experience with the sleep police is not so much the early/late types - in my field, night owls are normal and often expected (occasionally switching to night shift for a few days to a week, while jet lagged and oxygen deprived is normal).

What I encounter is the sleep Spartans. The ones who think that needing more than 6 hours of sleep a night is a sign of weakness - they get by on five and are professionally so much better than you are! And last Thursday they worked through the whole night, and had a nap on the couch in the lounge before starting work on Friday.

I know from experience that I do best with regular, sufficient sleep, averaging about eight hours a night. I do know people who can get by on much less and be healthy and productive. I also know people who deprive themselves of sleep to work long hours, but have to work those long hours to compensate for their lack of efficiency because they're tired and groggy. The former I envy, the second I find irritating when they go on about how virtuous they are.

Teaching tends to require you to get up early so whether you like it or not your habits tend to shift. What I encounter are people who don't understand or accept that you can't do socialize until 10 pm or that a 7:30 supper time is too late and messes with your whole schedule.

For a lot of people, it's not as simple as just going to bed earlier. I generally sleep pretty well, and do just fine on about 7 hours a night. But unless I'm actually sick, it's difficult to impossible for me to fall asleep before 11:00 pm. And I am not at my best first thing in the morning. I do attempt to be civil, at least, but it's not the time to have serious conversations or ask me to make decisions.

I did a lot of third shift work in college, and adapted to it very well. I suspect that I'd handle working nights quite well even now. If I were allowed to do what would work best for my body, I'd probably be up until about 1:00 - 2:00 am, and sleeping until around 9:00 - 10:00.

"Well, look who finally decided to join us" when I finally came down in the morning.

I HATE that comment. I've gotten that, too, and it makes me want to slap someone.

And, I've also gotten the "well, if you'd just go to bed earlier, you could get up earlier." No. If I go to bed before midnight, take my temperature, because that means I'm sick. More often than not, I'm still up at 2 or 3 in the morning. Going to bed early is just going to make me very grumpy and depressed, because you've just taken away my best time of the day from me.

ETA: looks like Firecat and I are in agreement - she and I posted the same thing at the same time

Without some other reason to force myself to get up earlier, I regularly sleep from about 3:30AM to about 10am. I know it's only 6.5 hours, but that's when my eyes pop open and I feel good.

My father, on the other hand is a sleep dictator. We got into a blowout the other day about sleep schedules. I'm not working, my kids are homeschooled. If we want to sleep till 10, there's absolutely no reason we shouldn't be able to. He, on the other hand, was insisting I was a horrible person for not getting up by 6am.

And, for the record, I spend the hours between the kids' bedtime and my bedtime working on a book I've been trying to write. I have zero attention span, so I keep myself focused by giving myself regular short breaks to bob around online.

Logged

Some people lift weights. I lift measures. It's a far more esoteric workout. - (Quoted from a personal friend)

My experience with the sleep police is not so much the early/late types - in my field, night owls are normal and often expected (occasionally switching to night shift for a few days to a week, while jet lagged and oxygen deprived is normal).

What I encounter is the sleep Spartans. The ones who think that needing more than 6 hours of sleep a night is a sign of weakness - they get by on five and are professionally so much better than you are! And last Thursday they worked through the whole night, and had a nap on the couch in the lounge before starting work on Friday.

I know from experience that I do best with regular, sufficient sleep, averaging about eight hours a night. I do know people who can get by on much less and be healthy and productive. I also know people who deprive themselves of sleep to work long hours, but have to work those long hours to compensate for their lack of efficiency because they're tired and groggy. The former I envy, the second I find irritating when they go on about how virtuous they are.

This is what irritates me, too. Our society seems to consider getting a good night's sleep on a regular basis to be a luxury and a sign of laziness/weakness. People complain-brag about how little sleep they've gotten to show how hard-working they are and how much stamina they have.

For me, a good night's sleep is a necessity. I am OK as long as I get at least 7 hours, though my body seems to want 9. Any less than 6 and I am noticeably impaired. My IQ seems to drop about 30 points and I get emotionally reactive and weepy. When I was consistently sleep-deprived while DD was an infant, the simplest everyday tasks became impossibly perplexing.

I'm not completely sure how abnormal that is. I used to think there was something wrong with me since everyone else seems to be fine with less sleep. But I think many people are in denial about how well (or not) they are functioning. My DH always claimed he felt fine if he slept 4 hours, but it was clear to me when DD was an infant that he was really not OK with that amount. He just wouldn't admit it, even to himself, because he was supposed to be "tough."

So, Sleep Dictator, go ahead and make fun of me for leaving the party early so I can sleep 8 hours. I may not be as tough and cool as you, but at least I know and respect my own limits.

Logged

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. -George Washington Carver

I've known parents (not mine, thankfully!) who refuse to let their teenagers sleep in on weekends. Not sure whether that counts as being a sleep dictator or not.

And POD to the posters who have stated that people who are "night owls" aren't necessarily lazy. For example, on weekends, I like to go to bed at midnight, and sleep in til about 9am. My DF's mother once commented that that was a bit "lazy". But the irony is, she goes to bed at 7pm and wakes up at 5am. She is getting one more hour of sleep than me, yet I'm the lazy one?!

I've known parents (not mine, thankfully!) who refuse to let their teenagers sleep in on weekends. Not sure whether that counts as being a sleep dictator or not.

And POD to the posters who have stated that people who are "night owls" aren't necessarily lazy. For example, on weekends, I like to go to bed at midnight, and sleep in til about 9am. My DF's mother once commented that that was a bit "lazy". But the irony is, she goes to bed at 7pm and wakes up at 5am. She is getting one more hour of sleep than me, yet I'm the lazy one?!

That would be my parents. While my friends would be sleeping until noon on weekends, I would be up before 8:00 a.m. There was no sleeping in, ever, unless my sister or I were sick. Summer was the same. No sleeping in then either.